Broward Dining: Bluefin Parkland

Note: Bluefin Parkland is now running an extremely aggressive “crowdsourced” gift card deal that frankly is one of the best fine dining bargains in the greater Broward and Palm Beach County area right now. For $100, you get a gift card worth $180. For $500, you get $1000, which you can split up into multiple gift cards if you like. If you’re a sushi fanatic like I am, you’d be crazy not to take advantage of this. The cards are good for up to one year at the Parkland location.

One of the first priorities for us after moving to South Florida was finding our “local” sushi place. Sushi is one of our favorite cuisines, and when you live in a warm climate it also is one of the most refreshing after a long and hot day.

But high-quality, authentic Japanese-style sushi can be extremely difficult to find in South Florida. Heck, it was difficult enough to find in suburban New Jersey where we used to live, and it’s still something of a challenge in New York City unless you go to the most expensive and well-known places.

We are lucky enough to live less than 10 minutes away from one of the best sushi restaurants in Broward County, if not all of South Florida, the Parkland location of Bluefin Sushi.

Chef Yozo Natsui, Proprietor of Bluefin Parkland.

The original Boca Raton location of Bluefin was opened by Japanese-born Chef Yozo Natsui in 2005 and has since remained one of the hottest restaurants for business lunches as well as for evening dining for its excellent and beautifully presented sushi and Thai dishes as well as its modern and attractive decor.

Natsui-san, who is a classically-trained sushi chef and has been in the business for over 30 years and is considered one of the prime innovators of American-style sushi, opened up a smaller location in Parkland in 2008, where he leads a staff of hand-picked sushi chefs that he has educated in the art and measure up to his meticulous standards.

While he continues to consult at the Boca location, he makes the Parkland one his permanent sushi dojo. The Parkland restaurant has ample table seating, but if you truly wish to appreciate Yozo-san and his chefs engaged in their art form, you want to sit at the sushi bar and observe their mastery.

An elaborate sushi boat presentation, with nigiri sushi, makizushi and sashimi in the classical style.

A sushi/sashimi dinner combo, from one of the pre-set menu items.

“Uzuzukuri Combo B”

Shrimp Tempura, Dinner portion

Steamed Gyoza

While Yozo-san’s traditional preparations are top-notch, the restaurant prides itself on its unusual and creative preparations. This is a lobster roll, which is an entire deep-fried lobster tail with the meat removed and formed into a makizushi roll, with a sweet shoyu sauce and Japanese-style spicy mayo drizzled onto it.

Chutoro, served as a complimentary appetizer at the sushi bar with a Thai-style sweet and spicy vinegar sauce.

The “Sushi Bomb” which is one of the rolls that made this restaurant famous. A makizushi of tuna, salmon, escolar, avocado, asparagus, scallion that is fried in a tempura batter and garnished with sweet shoyu-based “eel sauce” and spicy mayo.